Tap the ♥ on any cover to save it here. Your shelf stays in this browser.
These spooky books refuse to live in a single setting, so they get a shelf of their own. Expect witches, ghosts, vampires, cursed roads and drawings with something wrong in them.
Some are short, sharp and properly frightening, while others are warm, funny and only lightly scary. Together, they show how far horror fiction can stretch, from fairy tale and literary fiction to a mystery told in pictures.
For each pick, we give a fright rating and a short reason to read it. After that, you will find the rest of our spooky books shelf, sorted by year of publication.
Nine cards, face down. Turn one over and read your fortune.
| # | Book | Year | Fright | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Her Body and Other PartiesCarmen Maria Machado | 2017 | StoriesLiterary | |
| 2 |  Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora ZengKylie Lee Baker | 2025 | GhostsSocial horror | |
| 3 |  Strange PicturesUketsu | 2022 | MysteryTranslated | |
| 4 |  Rest StopNat Cassidy | 2024 | NovellaPsychological | |
| 5 |  The BlanksGrady Hendrix | 2025 | Short storySatire | |
| 6 |  Snake-EaterT. Kingfisher | 2025 | Folk horrorCosy-ish | |
| 7 |  If It BleedsStephen King | 2020 | NovellasHolly Gibney | |
| 8 |  So ThirstyRachel Harrison | 2024 | VampiresDarkly funny | |
| 9 |  AnotherPaul Tremblay | 2025 | Middle gradePandemic |
Eight genre-bending stories explore women's bodies, from a wife who never removes the green ribbon at her throat to fading women sewn into prom dresses. Altogether, it is one of the defining collections of its decade.
In 2020's emptied New York, a crime-scene cleaner whose sister died in a hate attack finds hungry ghosts waiting at each new scene. Ultimately, it is raw, angry and frightening, and among the scariest spooky books here.
Uketsu tells this Japanese mystery through a series of drawings, each hiding a clue to a crime. Consequently, it is one of the most unusual spooky books here, and the horror is in the details.
A young musician on a late-night drive pulls into a highway rest stop and finds he cannot leave. In short, it is a compact nightmare about the open road.
On a car-free summer island, the residents have one rule: ignore the tall, skeletal Blanks. In other words, it is a short, sharp story about what comfortable people agree not to see.
Selena flees to her late aunt's house in the Sonoran Desert. Soon, she accidentally accepts courtship gifts from a roadrunner god in Kingfisher's warm, weird desert horror.
This collection gathers four novellas. Above all, the title story has Holly Gibney suspecting that the TV reporter who turns up at every disaster is something else entirely.
A bored suburban wife's girls' weekend ends with a group of vampires and a hunger she did not see coming. As a result, it is a fun, bloody midlife-crisis novel and one of the lighter spooky books on our list.
Lonely twelve-year-old Casey's parents invite a sleepover guest: a strange, clay-skinned boy called Morel. Finally, it is Tremblay's first book for middle-grade readers.
Strange Pictures tells its mystery through drawings. Meanwhile, Her Body and Other Parties mixes horror, fairy tale and literary fiction in eight stories.
Yes. So Thirsty and Snake-Eater are warm, funny and only lightly frightening.
Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng and Rest Stop are the most unsettling picks here.
Looking for more Halloween reading? Then browse all our Halloween books, where these spooky books sit beside haunted houses, folk horror and the classics.